Best Of 2011 part 4

Baron Zen & Tekblazer - "Elektrik Surgery"

Nice lo-fi crazyness. This is a good mix between the comedy garage rock style of the original Baron Zen album and the instrumental electronic sounding Rhythm Trax EP from a couple years back.

AraabMuzik - "Electronic Dream"

I'm gonna be honest. The first time I heard this, I thought it was cheesy as hell. It grew on me kinda fast, and I find myself listening to this a lot lately. If you're familar with his hip hop material, it's not that different, he just puts his style of drum programming over samples taken from really cheesy techno songs. This is a great car stereo album.

The Warlocks - "Enter At Your Own Skull"

This is an album of b-sides and demos by them, but it's a great album. They show some different sides of the band on this one that aren't apparent on their regular albums. They usually have a more sludgy sound, but some of these songs remind me of T.Rex type stuff.

Skratch Bastid - "The Entertainer"

A good Z-Trip style DJ mix, especially for a free download.

Zombi - "Escape Velocity"

Not to be confused with electronic solo artist 'Zomby', this is a synth based instrumental band fronted by a dude named Steve Moore from Pittsburgh. There must be something in the water there, because I end up straight LOVING certain music that comes from there.

Rapper Big Pooh - "Fat Boy Fresh Vol. 1- For Members Only"

2 dope solo albums in one year. He's come a long way since "The Listening".

Patton Oswalt - "Finest Hour"

He's not my favorite stand-up, but he always comes through with a strong set.

Toro Y Moi - "Freaking Out"

This is a more dancy side of the band. This EP seems like it was made for DJs. It's really too bad they were so weak live when they came here last year supporting this release.

Skream - "Freeizm History"

I actually have no idea when these songs were recorded, this just showed up as a free download at the end of the year. Not all of this stuff is the dubstep that he's known for, he delves into other sub-genres, and there's some new sounding stuff on here too. A little something for everyone.

Noah23 - "Fry Cook On Venus"

I don't know how, but I never heard of this dude until last year, but apparently he's been around in the underground for years now. He calls himself the "Canadian Based God" on one of the songs on here, if that gives you any indication of how humorous he is. Noah is just a really versitile MC, who seems like he could rap in any style and pull it off extremely well and sound at home within that style. I'll definitely be checking out his older stuff now.

Shigeto - "Full Circle Remixes"

An extension of his great 2010 album, just about all these remixes are super tight.

Count Bass D - "#FULLCOUNT"

Count Bass D is such a weird anomaly to the rap world. He was signed to a major label in the mid 90's and flopped because they didn't know how to market him or who to market him to. Even in the underground, I feel he's kinda looked over. He has a very simple laid back sounding rap style that some people call boring, but i'm never bored when I listen to him. His production style is very chopped up MPC preciseness, that other beatmakers can really appreciate, but I feel like all his finesse is lost on regular people.